


Not Quite Human

by ScarletFauna



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Coital Cuddling, Self-Conscious Castiel (Supernatural), Smut, monsterfucker fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27841354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarletFauna/pseuds/ScarletFauna
Summary: Cas' insecurities about his true form lead to him doubting Dean's love for him. Can his boyfriend make him realize that he loves him no matter what he looks like?
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 42





	Not Quite Human

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first Destiel fic and I never thought I'd actually post one (I never really considered myself a shipper as I stopped watching SPN before Cas even came along) but jfc that season finale was awful and you guys deserved better. So feel free to pretend that this happens in the aftermath of your own revised ending (however you choose that to go) in which Cas and Dean start dating after the former gets freed from the empty. Or you can pretend that this is them dating in heaven. Your choice really.

I'm nestled in his arms, seeking the courage to ask my question when he starts mouthing at the skin along my neck. It's a strange sensation, having skin to be kissed at all, really. My true form would never allow for this type of intimacy. What's even stranger is the tingles that go jolting through every inch of me whenever he gently bites down. Perhaps it's because his patterns are sporadic, unpredictable. The bites aren't painful, nor do I dislike them, but I have no way to brace myself before he takes my rubbery flesh between his teeth. That being said, I can feel him slowly moving upward along my nape before he latches onto the bottom of my ear. He suckles at it not unlike how infants suckle their mother's breasts. One would think it was his only source of nourishment from the intensity in which he does so. 

I'm not used to feeling desire at all much less the kind that stems from physical gratification. Amidst the moans and gasps that flood past my lips as he reverses the direction of his administrations, I can't help but secretly remark on my hope that he never stops. It's not something I ever imagined receiving from a human, much less something I'd be willing to give anything to experience for eternity. Eventually my thoughts gain a new addition of the awareness that he's lapping at my collarbone. Meanwhile, his other hand fumbles with the buttons on my shirt. It's ironic really. My true form is immeasurable, unable to contain or comprehend, yet in this vessel I'm encased by mere scraps of fabric that requires a struggle to remove. While I appreciate my beloved's enthusiastic vigor, I can't help but wonder if he'd be this eager to see me exposed in terms of my true form. I recognize the unfairness of trying to gauge Dean's reaction when he couldn't do so without losing his sight altogether. I'd never request that from him, but it's hard to ignore the curiosity about what he might think if he somehow could comprehend me in that state. I'm dimly aware of Dean's kisses slowly growing less frequent, albeit not without reluctance on his part. In spite of my baser instinct's disappointment in the decline of kisses, I find myself smiling. Based on past experiences, I don't think it's a stretch to assume he's trying to devise a method of undressing me that won't require him to forfeit his access to my body, even for an instant. Then I remember that it's not really my body. It's Jimmy Novak's. My thoughts return to wondering if he'd be this eager to see me at my own barest if he knew what lay beneath this rubbery skin.

That isn't to say being in this form is without benefits. Having finally succeeded at unbuttoning my shirt, Dean almost rips off the garment from behind, throwing it somewhere in the room before all but forgetting it. He buries his face into my shoulder while his hands inch up my torso until they find the nipples at the top. He pinches them and twists the way one might adjust what humans refer to as a radio dial. The tingling sensation intensifies and my body writhes in his lap as though it's struggling to contain the pleasure coursing through it. The unfamiliarity of the sensation sends cracks of adrenaline through my being, heightening the arousal pooling in my stomach. The selfish, secular, human part of me wants nothing more than to lose myself in the lust heating my core, but I mustn't forget what I really am, and I can't forget that this body isn't mine. 

It's hard to describe what I feel towards Jimmy Novak in this instant. Jealousy is too petty, too narcissistic a word. What right have I to feel jealous of the man who I took everything from? What even is left of him to resent? Technically, he isn't even around anymore to claim the body I inhabit. By all rights it's mine for the taking. But that doesn't change the fact that it isn't what I really look like, that it's little more than a shell for what some might go so far as to call a monster. Make no mistake, I can't see Dean willing to be this intimate with Jimmy, but it's still his body that makes him so breathless and excited. It's Jimmy that Dean gets so excited about seeing naked, the prospect of coupling with him that causes the hardness I currently feel pressing against my thigh. Even if my true form had that effect on him, I doubt it would even be physically possible. If it was possible to be with me in that state, would he even want to? Once again I remind myself not to ponder over the impossible, but the fact remains that I can't take any credit for the things that elicit this passionate response from him.  
My train of thought is interrupted when Dean grabs tufts of Jimmy's black hair and yanks on it in a way that turns my head towards his own. I drink in the sight of his green eyes. In all my father's variations of the color, he created nothing in this world that matches the verdent hue of my lover's optics. They are uniquely his own signature color and it's but one of the ways in which there is no one who can take his place. My heart overflows with affection as I cup his chin and tilt it closer in order to gain a closer view of that green. I denote the presence of tiny flecks of molten gold before his eyelids bar the view. I open my mouth to make a sound of protest when he covers it with his own. He takes advantage of my open mouth to stick his tongue inside it. It wiggles around inside, painstakingly dragging itself over my tooth, cheeks, and the roof of my mouth as if seeking to map out every inch of it to commit to memory. It gradually grows more aggressive in it's expedition and eventually I can no longer bear to refrain from sucking on it like a lifeline, like the entire world is spinning and his tongue is the only thing with which to ground myself before I'm swept away in a hurricane of secular pleasure.  
If the world around us fell apart, I don't think it would be nearly enough reason to break the kiss in this moment. However, the need to breath quickly proves to be more than enough. I'm the first to break away, panting, and I haven't even fully inhaled one breath before Dean plunges his face into my neck and resumes kissing it. He wraps his arms around my frame, pulling me closer to him like something seeks to yank me out of his clutches. I appreciate the gesture, but I can't help but question whether he'd fight to keep the real me by his side like this. Would he hold me in my true form this lovingly? Would his fingers caress me like they're currently doing to this vessel's inner thigh? Or would he push me away in horror, or even disgust? Not for nothing does my kind preface our introductions to the few humans who can see us without a vessel with 'do not be afraid' and I wonder if that's how Dean would feel about me. 

Before I met Dean, I never had any reason to feel shame about my true form. I was always surrounded in heaven by those with similar ones after all. Nor did I ever think a day would come where I was jealous of humans, much less covet the ability to appear as my own version of one. Yet here I am, wishing for a body that I could be with Dean this way in. There's not much I wouldn't give for the comfort and security to know it's I alone who makes Dean this hard and passionate in place of the doubts that it's only because of my vessel that he is so. Instead of having to credit my host, I could take comfort in attributing everything he loved about my physical form to me alone. What would my brothers and sisters say if they knew I'd trade my wings, an angel's pride and joy for the reaffirmation that no one else on earth could give Dean what I could? But more importantly, I could be with Dean as a version of myself that I didn't have to cloak with someone else, a version that I wasn't ashamed of.

Even when naked by human standards, a barrier remains between us. Sometimes I feel like it's only sustained by this invisible wall, reminding me that we're only able to persist together by ignoring that wall's existence, and what it conceals. Dean's hand wriggles down my pants to grasp my length and I throw my head against his shoulder, my father's name erupting from my lips. In the earlier stages of our embrace, Dean may have taken a moment to joke about the irony of the situation, remarking around the uncanny loophole around invoking the name of a parent during a moment like this (humans apparently consider it something of a taboo that 'kills the mood') that applies to me, but he's past caring about that now. 

"You're excited" Dean whispers hotly in my ear. I'm not in any state of mind to respond with anything other than a prolonged moan, but I know he can't really tell whether I'm excited or not. Not from this body alone. The hardness of my length is merely it's reflexive reaction to such intimate administrations. Regardless of who or what occupied it, the reaction would always be constant. That's not to say I don't find it pleasurable, but it's times like these that support my theory that Dean has something of a cognitive dissonance towards my true form. In order to love me he must either forget or pretend that I'm not really Jimmy. If it's the former, I contemplate reminding him. Enabling the illusion that there's nothing more to be than the surface of this body seems dishonest towards him and unfair to Jimmy. Lying in his arms without re-iterating the implications of my eldritch nature makes me feel like I'm perpetuating a lie. But what if when he decides the implications of loving a being like me is more than he can stomach? Based on my understanding of human rhetoric, it doesn't seem to hold 'people into freaky shit' in high esteem. Would Dean really choose his dignity over being one of them. What if he doesn't consider me worth defying such human norms for? I consider the alternative theory that he's cognizant of the nature of my true form, but remains in wilful denial. Perhaps he has to in order to be with me. Maybe he needs to deny what I really am, what I truly look like. Perhaps the reality is just too much for him to bear. Which is why the possibility that he'd refuse to love me in my true form given the option hurts as much as it does. 

Dean is after all a hunter first and formost. And as a hunter, he's made no secret of his revulsion towards monsters. While it's true there are those he considers his allies, but from what I've seen, he always seems apprehensive and uncomfortable when reminded of their monstrous nature, preferring to distance himself whenever the mask of their humanity falters. 

And as Dean begins to praise me for the things Jimmy's body does to him, I realize that even the most grotesque the monsters of this world pale in comparison to me. For at least they maintain some degree of humanoid features even in their most bestial states. I, on the other hand, am another matter entirely. If Dean finds something as mundane as werewolves off-putting, there's no room left to plausibly deny his revulsion to my true form if ever faced with it. 

"Fuck you're gorgeous" Dean groans as he wedges his thigh between my legs. I want to thank him for the compliment. I know he means well, but thanks to my newfound revelation, words fail me. There's too much shame and self-loathing clogging up my throat to speak. A stinging in my eyes warns me of the threat of tears. I try to rub them away, but the gesture invites questioning from my beloved, leaving me with little choice besides revealing the reason for my sadness. I like to think my time with the Winchesters has improved my capacity to convincingly lie, but I already know my progress won't extend to this. I know the integral thing to make sure he knows the extent to which I'm not really human, but the selfish, carnal, primal part of me resists with all my might. I can't even begin to fathom the agony in store when he leaves me. I can't even bear to comprehend what I'll feel watching the horror and disgust in his eyes when he realizes it's a monster in his arms. I've never been one to fear pain before this, but now I do. The tears are clawing their way to the surface. I can feel them tearing me apart from the inside. But I mustn't concede, I will not shed them. Not when there's no going back from what comes after. Not when I'm so very afraid... 

Then Dean plants a chaste kiss on the side of my head before murmuring he loves me. And gone is any hope of suppressing the tears. The urge to cry is wrenched from out my chest before I even feel the wetness on my cheeks. Part of me vaguely registers Dean grunting in puzzled astonishment, but then I'm hit with another heaving sob, immediately followed by another. They crash down on me like waves, taking me further and further away from him, dragging me into the depths of my tearful sorrow. I try to stop, to claw my way above the water, to take a gasp of air to steady myself in relation to my surroundings, but my tears are too many and they sink me deeper and deeper.  
Dean repeatedly asks me what's wrong. I try to answer him, but every time I do, I remember that my explanation is all that stands between him leaving me. When that happens, another bout of tears instinctively attempts to stall the inevitable. The only thing my mind is capable of computing in response to the question are repeated professions of my love in between blubbered apologies. For a while it seems that I can never hope to get used to the pain of my broken heart long enough to suppress or ignore. Not even for the few moments required to make sure Dean knows the extent to which I'm a monster. Eventually, he gives up on deriving an answer. Instead he shifts my position so that he's cradling me like an infant, pressing my face into his neck while he rubs my back. His actions turn out to be surprisingly effective at easing my sobs. Within minutes, I'm able to successfully catch the breath required to quell my sobs. Slowly but surely, they subside into muted panting, upon which Dean takes it as a cue to resume his questioning.  
"Hey Cas? You wanna tell me whats up?" He gently inquires. A flare of affection flowers through my heart at the concern in his voice, but it quickly turns to anguish when I remember what awaits me. Yet I cannot keep benefiting from Dean's denial regarding what I am any longer.  
"Dean... I'm sorry" I whisper, unable to remove my face from his neck. I breathe in his scent, trying to commit it to memory while I still can. 

"For what?" He asks in bafflement. 

"I should have been upfront from the beginning" I sadly explain. "I shouldn't have correlated your feelings this vessel with what you feel for me"

I wait for Dean to push me off him and shout at me for misleading him, but I remain stationary in his lap.

"You lost me" He confesses at last. 

"Dean, you claim I make you feel a certain way, that you love me," 

I can feel his arms tensing with an onslaught of regret on his part. I press my palms against his chest and push myself away from him, finally meeting his eyes with my own. The worried look in his beautiful green eyes is nearly enough to break my heart all over again. 

"You have to understand, I've waited so long to hear those words from you," I brush my hand against his square jaw, reveling in the rough sensation of the stubble that peppers it. "But you don't mean them. How could you?"  
I fight back a stray sob that threatens to pull me under again. "You have no idea who - or what I really am" 

Dean's expression shifts to one of minor vexation. "You're self-conscious about being an angel? That's what this is all about?" 

Part of me looks a bit offended at the casual way he dismisses my concerns, but another part dares to hope for the best. But if it's simply a matter of a miscommunication on my part, I mustn't exploit his failure to comprehend my implications.  
"Dean, I'm afraid you've come to associate me with Jimmy Novak. But that's far from my true form" I explain. 

"You think I don't know about Angels and their meat suits?" He snaps. "After after all the trouble Michael took to make me his?" 

"No Dean, I'm not sure you do!" I reply, with tremors racking my voice. "We-we're not like demons. We don't exist as shapeless clouds of smoke outside our vessels" 

"Well, I figured that much! It's what sets you apart from them, ain't it?" He asks impatiently.

"But perhaps you mistake our true forms with Chuck's, attributing the light you believe we appear as with our tendency to blind in it" 

I steady myself with a grip on Dean's bulky shoulders. "That isn't the case for us at all, Dean. We have tangible forms. And they're worse than anything you could imagine" 

Unable to face Dean again, I forcibly transfix my gaze on his lap. I can't bear to see the look in those beautiful eyes when he finally realizes what he's dealing with.  
"If you could see me as I really am... I'm not sure you'd feel the way you think you do. Not if you knew what I really looked like"

"Well, it ain't like I can get a preview. And a sneak peek won't tell me anything I don't already know about you" Dean argued. "So I'm not really seeing the issue here."

"Because you deserve better than someone like me!" I raise my voice. "You deserve someone who doesn't need to hide what he is in order for you to love them!"

I sense an impending resurgence of tears, but my growing frustration gives me the strength to soldier through them. 

"What did I ever do that suggested I care about that crap?" He demands. "Because I don't!" 

"Well I do!" I shout. My eyes are blurring and I desperately try to blink into focus. "Maybe you can pretend there's nothing more to me than Jimmy Novak, but I can't!"  
I furiously wipe out the tears before they spill again, but they regenerate faster than I can stop them overflowing from my eyes. "Hearing you compliment my appearance, when you're really talking about this vessel... Saying you love me when you'd never feel that way about my true form... it's humiliating, alright?" 

I can sense my cheek's flush as the confession bursts out like a creature from an egg. I'm quickly left feeling empty, and broken afterwards. I'm sure by this point that he finally understands where I'm coming from, as he remains unresponsive for what feels like an eon. I take advantage of the silence to relieve some of the mounting sobs that I can't hold back for any longer. 

"If I could show you what I really looked like, if I first appeared to you that way... You'd be terrified. You'd think I was just another monster, and you'd treat me as such" I whisper.

To my bewilderment, Dean merely chuckles and ruffles my hair. It's all I can do not to groan and demand to know what it takes to get through his thick skull.  
"Uhh, hate to break it to ya buddy but you didn't need your true form to freak me out that night in the barn" He says. "Hehe, do you remember how dramatic your entrance number was?" 

"Being an angel of the lord calls for a certain degree of presentation-" I sputter indignantly, only for him to place his pointer finger on my lips and lift my chin with his thumb to meet my eyes. "Uh uh, Cas. It's my turn with the mic" If not for my lips being sealed off, I'd ask him where exactly he's keeping this mic that entitles him to speak over me.

"And yeah, I would have shot you in your true form first and asked questions later," He goes on to state without an ounce of doubt in his voice. "But I was ready to fire on anything that came through those doors- and I kinda did!" He reminds me. 

I try to squirm out of his grip in embarrassment from the memory, but he firmly keeps me put.  
"I'm just saying, I don't think it's fair to go off the first time we met. Not when it was a bed of roses to start with" He points out. 

Dean raises his other hand in order to brush away my tears. "Sure I probably would have freaked out if you didn't bother with a meat suit when we first met. But even with one, I thought you were a creepy, psycho!"

"But if not for my vessel, you'd never have accepted me as a friend!" 

Dean rolls his eyes as my protestations and gently caressed my cheek.  
"Yeah well, whether I knew about your 'true form' or not, if you told me that someday I'd make a habit of rolling in the hay with the bug-eyed little stick-in the mud who wouldn't know a joke if it bit him in the ass..."  
He removes his thumb from my lips in favor of cupping my jaw with the respective hand.  
"Look, my point being, I don't need to know how you look under your makeup to know who you are" He pauses in mild surprise at his words as if he can't believe he actually said something that romantic. I confess I'm having a hard time coming to grips with it myself. He quickly regains his composure, though. 

"And don't come at me with that crap about Jimmy Novak. He's not the one who pulled me out of hell, it wasn't him saving the world more times than he shoulda had to, he never walked out on heaven to stand with us humans, he didn't save my little brother from a life in the crazy shack, it ain't him who looks like a lost puppy whenever I lose him, he didn't have the balls to call a stripper out on her daddy issues, and he sure as hell wasn't the one who saved my bacon with his love for me" He pauses to take a breath. 

"Cas, don't tell me I've gotta keep going," He pleads in the most endearing manner.  
"I mean I will," He hastily adds, "But we'll be here for a while if that's the case. You'll have to give me a while to come up with more sappy shit like that. I can't exactly make it up on the spot"  
A devious grin pervades across his face as he begins to straddle me. "But I know something else I can do in a lot less time. And I've mostly got positive reviews under my belt" 

I cradle his face before pressing my own against it. "How's that for an answer?" I ask in what I hope comes off as a sultry voice.  
The smirk on Dean's face is almost feral as he swiftly spins me onto my back. "I think I can guess what you mean"  
One last question drives me to block his lips before he captures my own.  
"Does it ever bother you, Dean? That I'm not human" I softly ask, raising a hand to caress his face.  
"You can be honest. I won't mind" I promise.  
Dean gently takes my hand and kisses it on the palm. He then proceeds to entwine my fingers with his own before pinning my arm to the ground.  
"Cas, you're more human than anyone I've ever met." The tone of his voice leaves little room for argument


End file.
